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- Joined
- 10 Dec 2009
- Posts
- 157
Hello, I am looking to upgrade my current computer in any area to improve its perferformance. I use it mostly for gaming on a daily basis and its getting quite old now although it still can play a lot of the latest games at max settings, with that in mind im looking for the components that will give the biggest performance improvement.
Using some logic
I wanted to narrow down the components to best increase in performance, to do this I need advice from you guys/gals.
SSD
At first glance an SSD seems like a pretty big performance booster however I am not accustom to them and I have read in places that they have problems such as poor random read/writes and they need the Trim function to free themselves some space. So I am wondering what models to look at and what problems do they have? If there is a model with no downsides then an SSD sounds like a good choice to upgrade.
Liquid cooling
Again, it seems like a big perfermance booster, I imagine Liquid cooling and an SSD would also decrease noise drematicly which would be a nice bonus. However to get a decent performance boost from Liquid cooling I would have to overclock my CPU which I have never done before.
Windows 7
Aside from a nice new GUI, this OS is supposed to be less memory hungry. Is there any particular difference between the OEM and retail as OEM is cheaper?
Graphics Card
I said I use my computer for gaming so upgrading my graphics card seems like a good choice. However everywhere apears to be out of stock for the GTX295 and 5870 so im out of luck for upgrading my card
Any other suggestions would be helpfull.
Here are my current specs:
Asus P5KPL-VM mobo
Intel core 2 quad q6600 @2.4Ghz stock speeds
Nvidia Geforce 8800GTS @640mb stock speeds
OCZ DDR2 4Gb 800Mhz
windows vista 64-bit
MAXTOR 160GB 2mb cache HDD
£400 budget, I could stretch a little higher if needed.
Kind regards mad
Using some logic
I wanted to narrow down the components to best increase in performance, to do this I need advice from you guys/gals.SSD
At first glance an SSD seems like a pretty big performance booster however I am not accustom to them and I have read in places that they have problems such as poor random read/writes and they need the Trim function to free themselves some space. So I am wondering what models to look at and what problems do they have? If there is a model with no downsides then an SSD sounds like a good choice to upgrade.
Liquid cooling
Again, it seems like a big perfermance booster, I imagine Liquid cooling and an SSD would also decrease noise drematicly which would be a nice bonus. However to get a decent performance boost from Liquid cooling I would have to overclock my CPU which I have never done before.
Windows 7
Aside from a nice new GUI, this OS is supposed to be less memory hungry. Is there any particular difference between the OEM and retail as OEM is cheaper?
Graphics Card
I said I use my computer for gaming so upgrading my graphics card seems like a good choice. However everywhere apears to be out of stock for the GTX295 and 5870 so im out of luck for upgrading my card
Any other suggestions would be helpfull.
Here are my current specs:
Asus P5KPL-VM mobo
Intel core 2 quad q6600 @2.4Ghz stock speeds
Nvidia Geforce 8800GTS @640mb stock speeds
OCZ DDR2 4Gb 800Mhz
windows vista 64-bit
MAXTOR 160GB 2mb cache HDD
£400 budget, I could stretch a little higher if needed.
Kind regards mad
